In The Road to 9/11 (pp. 73, 75), as earlier in Drugs, Oil, and War, I quoted an earlier book as asserting that Pakistani Lt.-Gen. Fazle Haq, governor of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), was allegedly “heavily engaged in narcotics trafficking.” My quotation was from The Outlaw Bank, by Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne (p. 48, cf. p. 52); but I could also have cited similar claims in Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin (p. 479), Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Whiteout (p. 269), or M. Emdad-ul Haq, Drugs in South Asia (p. 201).

It seems clear that when Fazle Haq was governor, he was also an important CIA contact and supporter of the Afghan mujahideen, some of whom — it was no secret — were supporting themselves by major opium and heroin trafficking through the NWFP. A senior American official in Washington also told Beaty and Gwynne (p. 52) that Fazle Haq, who was “our man,” was himself “running the drug trade.” One could easily conclude from all these books that Fazle Haq was profiting personally from the drug trade. However the late governor”s son, Dr. Arshad Khan, has written me, denying that this was the case. After much correspondence with Dr. Khan, I would like to state that I am persuaded by his denial.

Therefore I want to make clear that I know of no grounds to accuse Fazle Haq of having profited personally from the drug traffic.

My reasons for doing so are not based on proof from evidence — it is virtually impossible to prove a negative. It is rather that I became convinced of Dr. Khan”s bona fides, above all after he diligently pursued, at my request, a reference used by Emdad-ul Haq to support his claim that “A Pakistani newspaper in 1993 reported that [General Haq”s] son had been convicted of charges of drug trafficking in New York.” The source — in Dawn (9/27/93) — turned out to be not a news report, but a letter to the editor; and it referred only to the arrest of “the son of a provincial governor” (unnamed). Dr. Khan supplied another news story from The Pakistan Daily Times, (10/4/02), showing that the arrestee was in fact the son of Fazle Haq”s successor, Abdul Ghafoor Khan Hoti. A

By this and other examples, Dr. Arshad Khan convinced me that he was working to establish the true facts, not obscure them. It is frequently the case that many books repeat an innuendo without any one of them having evidence to support it. It seems to be the case here that while American authorities at the time assumed Fazle Haq was involved in the drug traffic, no author has in fact produced any reason to implicate Fazle Haq personally in the profits from that traffic.

On occasion I have retracted unsupported statements after threats of a law suit. I want to make it clear that at no time in my lengthy correspondence with Dr. Khan did he ever threaten me with a law suit. I am retracting freely after my extended reassessment of the case.

Addendum Footnote: APakistan Daily Times, (10/4/02): “Aurangzeb Hoti, his father”s first cousin and son of Abdul Ghafoor Khan Hoti, former NWFP governor, hinders his smooth sailing. Aurangzeb was arrested on an American airport carrying narcotics when his father was governor. Later he was sentenced to five years of imprisonment.”